Written By: Jordan Weekday

Many people think Parkour is too difficult and not beneficial enough to even try. I’m here to prove otherwise.

-Benefit #1: Parkour is a full body workout – Parkour training encompasses full body fitness. Running, jumping, and exploring can work for all muscles; also, the fact that you’re having fun blurs the lines between working out and playing. Parkour adds fun to your usual static gym routine. It encourages Play while also learning and practicing more tactical movements.

-Benefit #2: Inspires quick thinking skills – Parkour necessitates practitioners to get around, pass, or get over obstacles quickly. These swift moments require you to train your brain to think on your feet. Performing these instinct and decisions making skills in Parkour can lead to practitioners more instinctive decisions in everyday life.

-Benefit #3: Promotes creativity – Parkour promotes practitioners to use more creative thinking in everyday life. Not every obstacle you meet in Parkour will be physical or have an easy solution, so you will have to use your creativity to overcome most obstacles.

-Benefit #4: Improves confidence – Parkour improves confidence by enabling people to overcome things they would never have thought about attempting before.

-Benefit #5: Improves core strength – The core is the center of your body and also is responsible for helping you twist and bend also enabling you to achieve different feats of agility such as flips or leaps of different sorts. Developing a strong core through practicing Parkour can also help to prevent lower back injuries. Having a strong core helps you maneuver through obstacles with ease.

-Benefit #6: Cardiovascular endurance – Parkour requires practitioners to be extremely active at times. The constant movement leads to increasingly high stamina by practitioners exercising often, by increasing your heart’s strength and also increasing oxygen supply to your body.

-Benefit #7: Reduces antisocial behavior – In a study conducted through a youth incentive in Westminster in conjunction with Parkour coaching, crime rate between youth ages 8-19 was reduced by 69% during the time they coached Parkour. Parkour has been proven to increase the rate of teens being social and non-hostile towards each other.

-Benefit #8: Anyone can do it –Media makes Parkour seem like it would take a lifetime to learn and consists of large and difficult feats, like flips, however, that is not true. Most Parkour movements come from simple movements that are easy to learn. You can also do it anywhere as long as you have permission.